🦄 25 Climate Soonicorns, According to VCs

In a market where funding is slowing, tariffs are rising, and the urgency to tackle the climate emergency is increasing, the next billion-dollar climate startup will need a powerful mix of grit, scalability, sustainability and serious staying power at its core.

So we asked 15 leading climate investors which startups have unicorn potential, and why.

From biogas power plants to food from fermentation and fungi to ev charging and digitalisation of the energy grid, here are 25 Scaleups that could be next to break out. 

25 Scaleups with Unicorn-Potential, according to VCs

🇬🇧 Arenko

1-Line Pitch: modular product suite offers proprietary, end to end automation software, powered by AI to enable the clean energy transition.
CEO: Rupert Newland
Total Funding: $13.6 million

Nominated by: Felix Winckler at White Star Capital
Why: “The digitalisation of the grid is a necessity in a world experiencing fast deployment of renewable energy and relying on increased electrification. Arenko are unique in providing both the operating system and the applications to grid scale battery systems. They have been showing rapid growth over the past few years working with the largest asset owners around Europe and more recently the US,” says Felix.

🇫🇷 Carbios

1-Line Pitch: Biotechnology powering plastic and textile circularity
Founder: Jean-Claude Lumaret
Latest Funding Round: €42.5 million 

Nominated by: Nic Gorini at Spin Ventures
Why: “Carbios is poised to become a climate unicorn by industrializing enzymatic recycling for plastics and textiles—solving a $200B+ waste problem. With exclusive partnerships (L’Oréal, Nestlé), €80M+ in funding, and a first industrial plant underway, it’s the clear tech leader enabling circularity at scale under tightening EU regulation,” highlights Nic.

🇩🇪 Cylib*

1-Line Pitch: Battery recycling with proprietary end-to-end technology
Founder: Lilian Schwich, Paul Sabarny, Gideon Schwich
Latest Funding Round: €55 million

Nominated by: Elisabeth Schrey at DeepTech & Climate Fonds
Why: “Cylib has developed an end-to-end, resource-efficient battery recycling process that recovers all critical raw materials—including lithium, cobalt, and nickel—while significantly reducing environmental impact. By addressing one of the most urgent challenges in the EV and energy storage sectors, Cylib is positioning itself as a cornerstone of Europe’s green industrial value chain. With its proprietary technology, strong regulatory tailwinds, and increasing demand for closed-loop battery supply, Cylib has all the ingredients to scale into a category-defining company—and a likely unicorn in the making,” details Elisabeth.

🇩🇪 Cloover

1-Line Pitch: Building the OS for renewable energy installers.
Founder: Jodok Betschart
Latest Funding Round: €105 million

Nominated by: Charles Fourault at AFI Ventures
Why: “​​Cloover offers an integrated platform that connects installers, manufacturers, energy providers, and consumers. By combining software, financing, and energy management solutions, the platform streamlines operations across the renewable energy value chain, making it easier for stakeholders to collaborate and scale their businesses,” concludes Charles.

🇫🇷 Descartes Underwriting*

1-Line Pitch: A new generation of insurance that builds resilience against climate, cyber, and emerging risks
Founders: Tanguy Touffut, Kevin Dedieu, Sébastien Piguet
Latest Funding Round: $120 million

Nominated by: Paul Moriou at Serena
Why: “Descartes Underwriting is a global leader in parametric insurance against climate risks, with a presence in 5 continents,” notes Paul.

🇨🇭 Ecorobotix*

1-Line Pitch: Precise, safe, reliable and affordable robotic solutions that simplify farmers’ life to produce healthy and affordable food.
Founder: Dominique Mégret
Latest Funding Round: $52 million

Nominated by: Marie Asano at ECBF
Why: “Ecorobotix is the global leader in ultra-high precision spraying, initially for herbicides applications. Strong team and strong growth demonstrated,” says Marie.

🇩🇪 ecoworks*

1-Line Pitch: Industrial building renovation for CO2-neutral living
Founder: Emanuel Heisenberg
Latest Funding Round: €40 million

Nominated by: Nikolas Samios at PT1
Why: “ecoworks provides the solution to one of the most pressing problems on Earth: A large chunk of CO2 we blast into the air comes from the energy needed to heat up our buildings, which is why there is a high pressure to make as many buildings as possible climate neutral. ecoworks does that e.g. by pre-fabricating new building skins and putting them on existing "dirty" buildings in no time. ecoworks is growing at a rapid pace and has a big project pipeline,” Nikolas tells us.

🇫🇷 Electra*

1-Line Pitch: A European charge point operator for electric vehicles. 
Founders: Aurélien de Meaux, Julien Belliato
Latest Funding Round: $330 million

Nominated by: Paul Moriou at Serena
Why: “Electra have been recognised as one of the Top 5 best charging network in Europe in just 3 years,” points out Paul

🇫🇷 Elum Energy

1-Line Pitch: Reliable energy monitoring and control solutions for standard & hybrid solar PV projects.
Founders: Cyril Colin
Latest Funding Round: $13 million

Nominated by: Charles Fourault at AFI Ventures
Why: “The global energy transition is increasing the demand for solutions that efficiently integrate renewable energy into power grids. Elum Energy meets this need by providing tools that optimise the performance and reliability of hybrid energy systems,” details Charles.

🇬🇧 Fuse Energy

1-Line Pitch: Building the world’s first renewable giant
Founders: Alan Chang
Latest Funding Round: $78 million

Nominated by: Felix Winckler at White Star Capital
Why: “Fuse is on an extremely ambitious mission to build a full stack renewable energy company. Their growth in recent years has been more than impressive. Alan brought the Revolute work culture with him making the Fuse team capable of building the energy company of the future,” notes Felix.

🇫🇷 Granular Energy

1-Line Pitch: Providing market solutions for 24/7 clean energy
Founder: Toby Ferenczi
Latest Funding Round: €7.5 million

Nominated by: Felix Krause at Vireo Ventures
Why: “Granular Energy pioneers time-based energy procurement and carbon accounting solutions, enabling companies and utilities to match renewable electricity in real time. By bringing transparency, accuracy, and trust to clean power claims, it accelerates the global transition toward 24/7 carbon-free energy,” says Felix.

🇩🇪 INERATEC

1-Line Pitch: Sustainable e-Fuels and synthetic chemicals to replace fossil crude oil. 
Founders: Tim Böltken, Philipp Engelkamp, Paolo Piermartini
Latest Funding Round: €70 million

Nominated by: Anne-Sophie Krechting at Atlantic Labs
Why: “INERATEC develops power-to-liquid technology, producing sustainable e-fuels and chemical products - cracking the code for decarbonising aviation, shipping, and chemicals. With large-scale plants already live in Germany, they’re positioned to meet rising industry demand where electrification falls short,” notes Anne-Sophie.

🇩🇪 Infinite Roots*

1-Line Pitch: Using fermentation and fungi to create the next generation of sustainable foods.
Founders: Mazen Rizk
Latest Funding Round: $58 million

Nominated by: Maximilian Schwarz at Nucleus Capital
Why: “Humanities’ ever-growing need for protein brings a range of dramatic consequences for our planet, as our current systems of protein production carries major inherent environmental inefficiencies. Infinite Roots creates the protein class of the 21st century, building upon a scalable, circular mycelium platform that generates a wide range of authentic, tasty, and sustainable products,” adds Maximilian.

🇬🇧 Notpla

1-Line Pitch: A revolutionary material made from seaweed and plants that biodegrades in weeks, naturally.
Founders: Pierre-Yves Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez
Latest Funding Round: $26.9 million

Nominated by: Nic Gorini at Spin Ventures
Why: “Notpla is redefining sustainable packaging with its seaweed-based, biodegradable alternatives to single-use plastics. Backed by £20M+ in funding and the Earthshot Prize, its commercial rollouts with Just Eat and major events show rapid traction. Positioned perfectly for global scale amid accelerating plastic bans and FMCG demand,” notes Nic.

🇺🇸 Ohalo Genetics

1-Line Pitch: Ohalo's technology shrinks the breeding cycles of plants. Our speed, accuracy and scalability create entirely new varieties of the world's most loved and consumed crops.
Founder: David Friedberg
Recent Funding: $40 million

Nominated by: Christian Guba of Extantia Capital
Why: “Ohalo Genetics makes crops more productive using precision breeding technologies. By using genomics and special breeding methods, they develop resilient, high-yielding seeds that reduce resource use and environmental impact. Their innovative approach offers a significant leap towards sustainable agriculture and improved global food security,” explains Christian.

🇩🇪 Ororatech*

1-Line Pitch: Reliable space insights for a wildfire management platform, to provide organisations with the tools to tackle wildfire challenges.
Founder: Thomas Grübler
Latest Funding Round: €25 million

Nominated by: Marie Asano at ECBF
Why: “OroraTech’s wildfire solution is based on a proprietary network of satellite-based infrared sensors. The system has on-orbit fire detection and can provide fire alerts within minutes. It is one of the most comprehensive fire intelligence on the market, ranging from fire detection, fire confidence, fire risk, and damage assessment. The market is unfortunately already huge and increasing and wildfires are increasing due to climate change. Currently the annual global cost of wildfires is estimated to be around USD 50 billion,” concludes Marie.

🇩🇪 Planet A Foods*

1-Line Pitch: Deliciously crafted, sustainable food for everyone - starting with 100% cocoa-free chocolate
Founders: Sara Marquart and Maximilian Marquart
Latest Funding Round: $30 million 

Nominated by: Maximilian Schwarz at Nucleus Capital
Why: “Global food and ingredients players have made supply chain resilience and agility a top priority amid evolving sourcing challenges. Planet A Foods strengthens sourcing stability by offering local, sustainable ingredients through a scalable, defensible technology platform, enabling food brands to deliver authentic products, independent of global supply chain volatilities, starting with cocoa. The team has executed diligently on tremendous demand, rapidly scaling partnerships within a short time since inception,” notes Maximilian.

🇩🇪 Rabot Energy

1-Line Pitch: Rethinking energy and offering customers a dynamic electricity tariff for households and electric cars with 100% green electricity.
Founder: Jan Rabe
Latest Funding Round: $22.7 million 

Nominated by: Felix Krause at Vireo Ventures
Why: “Rabot Energy pioneers advanced analytics and AI-driven tools, enabling real-time optimisation for energy trading and procurement. By enhancing transparency, risk management, and renewables integration, it drives efficiency and sustainability in modern power markets,” explains Felix.

🇩🇪 Reverion*

1-Line Pitch: Their all-in-one biogas solution comes as a containerised standard unit: ready for mass manufacturing and plug&play installation, offers revolutionary electrical efficiencies of 80% for both power generation and energy storage, and actively reduces GHG emissions with a negative CO2 balance.
Founders: Stephan Herrmann, Felix Fischer, Maximilian Hauck, Jeremias Weinrich
Latest Funding Round: $62 million

Nominated by: Christian Guba of Extantia Capital
Why: “Reverion’s modular biogas power plants convert waste into clean energy with high efficiency for both storage and use. Their flexible, scalable systems boost efficiency from 40% to 80%, integrating fuel cells and electrolysis. Targeting farmers with >$100M in pre-orders, utilities, and industry, the solutions promise rapid adoption in the renewable market,” explains Christian.

🇺🇸 Runwise*

1-Line Pitch: The first end-to-end boiler and heating system management platform
Founder: Lee Hoffman
Latest Funding Round: $19 million

Nominated by: Guilherme Penna at Silence VC
Why: “Most buildings (old or new) run on 1960s technology, wasting billions of dollars and tons of CO2. Runwise operates +7500 buildings in NYC alone, currently ready to expand to the entire US. Their ARR retention and growth perspectives are best in class,” says Guilherme.

🇺🇸 Sage Geosystems*

1-Line Pitch: A transformative geothermal energy company whose core team has over 150 combined years of O&G and turbomachinery experience and more than 200 patents with a proven record of action and delivery. 
Founder: Cindy Taff
Latest Funding Round: $17 million

Nominated by: Camille Zivre at Exa
Why: “Sage Geosystems has won several large contracts by revolutionising geothermal with "pressure geothermal", allowing for a scalable deployment in hot dry rock, unlocking long-duration energy storage that’s cheaper than batteries and generating revenue in <12 months,” details Camille.

🇺🇸 Tastewise*

1-Line Pitch: The food and beverage AI platform built for revenue activation.
Founder: Alon Chen
Latest Funding Round: $17 million

Nominated by: Nadav Berger at PeakBridge
Why: “The traditional F&B industry is ripe for disruption via data and AI, including in the way Products are developed: new innovation takes up to two years and a lot of time and money - and still around 90% of new products fail. Tastewise is the food and beverage AI platform built for revenue activation, enabling the world's biggest brands to dominate the shelf, streamline campaigns, and maximise revenue impact with GenAI workflows for retail and foodservice,” says Nadav.

🇨🇭 Terralayr

1-Line Pitch: terralayr provides energy flexibility services on demand.
Founder: Philipp Man
Latest Funding Round: $67.1 million

Nominated by: Elisabeth Schrey at DeepTech & Climate Fonds
Why: “Terralayr is developing a "Capacity-as-a-Service" platform. It provides battery storage capacity—ranging from minutes to years—to flexibility users like utilities or power traders, enabling their customers to access virtual battery capacity at zero capex. Terralayr not only offers 3rd party capacity but also owns and operates its own portfolio of grid-scale storage systems. With global demand for flexibility rapidly rising, Terralayr is well-positioned to become a key enabler of the clean energy transition—unlocking massive market potential and the scale needed for unicorn status,” says Elisabeth.

🇺🇸 Tractian

1-Line Pitch: Tractian builds streamlined hardware-software solutions to give maintenance technicians and industrial decision-makers comprehensive oversight of their operations.
Founder: Igor Marinelli
Latest Funding Round: $120 million

Nominated by: Guilherme Penna at Silence VC
Why: “Tractian's innovative AI solutions address the costly issue of unplanned industrial downtime, a $1.4 trillion problem for major companies. Their recent $120 million Series C funding positions them for significant growth potential,” suggests Guilherme.

🇨🇭 XFarm Technologies*

1-Line Pitch: The digital farming ecosystem for farmers and agrifood supply chain
CEO: Matteo Vanotti
Latest Funding Round: €36 million

Nominated by: Matteo Leonardi at Grey Silo Ventures
Why: “They have seen huge growth in the past 18 months, with expansion well beyond Europe as well as strong market pull and unit economics,” adds Matteo.

Disclaimer. Startups marked with (*) are either a portfolio company or have ties with the investor who recommended them.